Hearty Potato Soup

By Addie

Bread bowls are a sandwich shop favorite for a reason. Instead of venturing out into the cold night air, fill homemade Italian Bread Bowls with chunky potato soup featuring potatoes, onions, carrot, celery, and savory seasonings.

Ingredients

• 6 potatoes, peeled and cut into 1/2-inch cubes (2 1/2 pounds)
• 2 medium onions, diced
• 2 carrots, thinly sliced
• 2 celery ribs, thinly sliced
• 2 (14 1/2-ounce) cans low-sodium fat-free chicken broth
• 1 teaspoon dried basil
• 1 teaspoon salt
• 1/2 teaspoon pepper
• .................................................
• 1/4 cup all-purpose flour
• 1 1/2 cups half-and-half
• Italian Bread Bowls
• Garnish: fresh celery leaves

Preparation

Step 1

Combine first 8 ingredients in a 4 1/2-quart slow cooker.

Cook, covered, at HIGH 3 hours or until vegetables are tender.

Stir together flour and half-and-half; stir into soup. Cover and cook 30 minutes or until thoroughly heated. Serve in Italian Bread Bowls, and garnish, if desired.
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REVIEWS:

I thought this was good, nothing outstanding. It needs a little work, but I think it has great potential. I think next time I'll add some broccoli, garlic, and a bay leaf. It seemed to be lacking something... but it was certainly good.

Served this to my family last night and got rave reviews. My mother called me this morning and said that it deserved 6 stars!

Goes great with the bread bowls. Simple but oh so good.

My family loved this recipe. Definitely a keeper.

I like to improvise and this soup stands that well! I like to add THICK chunks, broccoli, spicey italian sausage, whole bay leaf and towards the end I like to fry up some bacon and use it to saute some mushrooms to add with the 1/2 and 1/2. Not as healthy, but BOY is it good! My family loves it!

I used five large russett potatoes and after more than four hours in the crock pot, some of the potatoes still were not cooked throughly. I put in just under 1/2 teaspoon of pepper and that was too much for me. All I could taste was the pepper. I didn't bother with the bread bowls. After dinner I mashed some of the potatoes as they were too chunky. The soup was okay with not a lot of flavor other than the pepper. I don't think I will make again.

I absolutely love this recipe. It's easy because it goes in the crockpot and doesn't take "all" day. I usually start it at 2 and we eat around 6:30/7. I usually cut the potatoes small so they always cook and are not hard like some others have complained. I also mix the flour and cream with a "whip" to help it blend before putting it in. I've never had it taste like flour. I don't usually serve in the bread bowl but that's only because it proves to be too much for me and the bread goes to waste. Instead I find a bun that is hard crusted with a soft center and that works nicely. This is one of our family favorites and I make it often. I've already shared it with lots of family and friends and will continue to do so.

I've been making this soup since it was first published years ago. To save calories and time, I skip the bread bowl, and use skim milk instead of half and half. I've served it for luncheon guests and always get lots of raves. Even my two year old granddaughter loves it.

I would make this again. I pureed the soup at the end and added a good squirt of Siracha (Chili garlic) sauce and about 1/2 a cup of shredded cheddar cheese. I served it with Challah rolls, not in bread bowl.

Okay, so I read the reviews and decided this soup would be a wonderful fall dinner to prepare in our crockpot. $25 and three and a half hours later, the potato soup was ready - at least we thought. The potatoes still were hard, and the broth - after the flour/half and half addition - was runny and unsatisfactory. I will not make this soup again, and will never recommend this recipe to a friend. I will, however, locate a better potato soup recipe.

Not very good at all. Adding the flour and cream at the last minute does not work too well. I have made lots of recipes with roue, and it has to be cooked first or else it tastes like flour, which is what happened here. Good idea but not practical. It would have been decent otherwise.

Someone chopped, sliced and peeled all those vegetables in 8 minutes! What's the secret? The soup sounds good but probably needs more seasoning.

This soup is awesome! It DID take me more than 8 minutes to wash, peel and chop the veggies...no big deal. As recommended, I added 2 cloves crushed garlic and 2 bayleaves...and I added cooked/crumbled bacon near the end. It DID take longer than 3.5 hours in MY crockpot...more like 5.5 hours...good thing I started it early enough in the day!! However, in the end, it was well worth the time spent!

My husband and I loved this recipe. I made one addition to it. I added about a cup of shredded Velveeta cheese. It was delicious and easy.

This is a great, hearty soup. Easy to make and to change up. I have added chicken to this and lessened the amount of potatoes. Also think it would be good with chicken and rice instead of potato. A winner!

This recipe was easy and delicious! The only change I made to it was adding a teaspoon of Cayenne Pepper. It made it spicy and even better! I love spicy food, so you may want to go with a half teaspoon instead.

The recipe was good, but I'd change a few things. I added garlic and thyme to the recipe. I also finished the soup with some crumbled bacon. Next time I'll leave out the flour and puree some of the vegetables to keep the soup thick but not floury.

Very tasty, satisfying recipe for Fall/Winter seasons. Works well with big fluffy buscuits, toasted parmesan French bread, or for special occasion with the Italian bread bowl. Didn't change any ingredients. Why mess with a good thing?

We loved this and I have made it twice in the last two weeks! I tried some variations the second time as suggested by other reviewers and I decided that the original recipe is perfect just the way it is! Instead of bread bowls, I had a sourdough loaf on hand so I cut up pieces and poured the soup over that. The second time we used homemade sourdough croutons! Yum! Definitely kid friendly!

To improve this recipe - make a roux and add toward the end of the cooking time instead of adding flour to half and half. Then add the half and half. If prepared as described in the recipe it will be on the thinner side. I sprinkled scallions, shreded cheddar and crushed pepper to the finished soup to boost flavor.

I added ground sausage and a bag of fresh spinach. Good stuff!

Easy to make and very filling! The bread bowls are the icing on the cake.

This is a great soup.I have varied the recipe by adding 2 cups cubed Velveta light cheese1/4 cup minced red bell pepper and adding 2 cans medium size shrimp and adding tabasco sauce.It works with chopped clams as well.I always use a roux to thicken the soup.

This soup was SO GOOD!!!! Everyone in my family liked it including my two small children. I made the bread bowl to go with it and that is what made it so fun for the kids!! Some people say that it tastes like raw flour, I didn't think so at all. This is a really good recipe and will be something that I will make very often.

This is a great base recipe. The flavor is really nice. It is very good as is, but I would suggest cutting the amount of potatoes in half and adding already cooked wild rice, broccoli, chicken, or any combination of those for more variety. It's a keeper!

I followed the directions exactly, and the soup had no taste. The only way I salvaged it was to add bacon and cheese. Otherwise, on it's own, the recipe was diapointing

I followed the directions perfectly and the soup was truly disappointing. Not only did I have to switch to a cook top after 4 1/2 hours of it being on HIGH in the crockpot and still not being done, I had to add all kinds of flavor at the very end to make it edible. The truly disappointing thing is that I made it for someone else...another family who was not feeling well. I can only hope they are stuffed up enough to not notice...

Not a bad recipe, I was a bit disappointed as I found it was bland. I made this soup as part of a "new parent meal package" and hope that they found it ok to eat OR that they found a way to make it a bit more flavorful. I'd DEFINITELY add something extra - bacon or some of my husband's fabulous smoked turkey to give it some more flavor.

Cooking pasta as as I write this because after 4 hours on high the potatoes still are not cooked through. Other than the time being off the flavor that the soup has thus far is very bland, all I notice is the basil and onion. If you want to try this plan on adding something for a better flavor, and give yourself a few extra hours.

I almost did not make this soup due to so many bad reviews. I am so happy I decided to make it. It was extremely flavorful. Most of the other reviews said that theirs lacked flavor. I did add fresh cilantro and fresh parsley to mine, but I don't think that did much to enhance the flavor. I did not use as much onion. I only used one. I probably used a bit more broth and a few more potatoes, but overall I followed the recipe.

The name should be hearty onion and potato soup. Two onions is WAY too much. If I were to make again I would probably cut it down to a quarter of the amount of onion, and add some broccoli to give the thing some color. The only color it had was the carrots. I also wouldn't do the celery, its flavor was too potent. Lastly, I had read the reviews about the potatoes not cooking thoroughly, so I just made sure that they were cut at 1/2" cubes and it was fine. I'm not a picky eater, and even I was disappointed.

My whole family loved this soup. It was the first time I've made it and I even had my cousin over for dinner. I read the reviews and was very scared to make it but I did a few slight changes, instead of celery I added broccoli. I added a little seasoned salt and garlic powder on top of the other seasonings. I thought I made way too much but I had barley any left over. I will be making this again!

This is probably the best potato soup that I have ever tasted! Unlike others who commented that they found it bland, I did not - neither did my husband. My son, who is not afraid to tell me if something doesn't live up to his expectations, raved about it. My foodie assistant loved it as well! I prepared as directed with these exceptions: I only used one whole (medium) onion, about 3 1/2 cups of chicken broth, the whole pint of Half & Half and increased the flour by a couple of tablespoons. Other than that I added the specified 1 tsp. of basil, 1 tsp. of salt, and 1/2 tsp. of pepper. It will be one of our "go-to" soup recipes, without a doubt!

My husband and I loved this soup. It is really easy to make and doesn't require any special ingredients. Many people are complaining about the potatoes not being cooked, so here is a suggestion. Make this on the stove. Use a stock pot and make it. Just add your first 5 ingredients and boil until everything is tender. THEN add your seasoning and the rest of the ingredients. Also, if you think the soup is bland, you should know that the longer you cook seasonings, the more flavor they lose. If you want this to be more potent, add your seasoning LAST. That really goes for any dish. If you don't have any bread bowls on hand, I made some Texas Toast to dip in it because we didn't have bread bowls. Even just mixing some butter and Parmesan onto some hamburger buns and broiling them would be great with this. Altogether, it was like eating at Panera!